What was Josephine’s famed ‘zigzag’ sex technique that had Napoleon hooked? The question has baffled historians – but now TRACEY COX solves an age old mystery
They had the love affair of the 18th century – and the erotic sex life that came with it.
Marie-Josephe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie, best remembered as Josephine, and Napoleon Bonaparte had a famously explosive relationship – and their adventures in the bedroom fascinated France – and historians to this day.
Now, fans of Ridley Scott’s blockbuster, which reimagines Napoleon’s (Joaquin Phoenix) marriage to Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), have stoked the intrigue.
But there is one element that history buffs have yet to discover: Josephine’s famous ‘zigzag’ technique. The method left the French military commander fascinated and pining for his wife in the bedroom after their divorce, but what it entails remains a complete mystery.
FEMAIL has put British sex expert Tracey Cox to the test, and she has seemingly solved the age-old question of how the ‘zigzag’ technique got the revolutionary leader under the collar.
Josephine’s famous ‘zigzag’ technique in the bedroom has baffled historians. FEMAIL put Tracye Cox to the test. Above is Ridley Scott’s new performance starring Vanessa Kirby as Josephine and Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon
Napoleon was naive and inexperienced with the opposite sex, and Josephine, six years older than him, changed that.
Never before had he met a woman like her: most of his previous encounters had been awkward fumbling with ladies of the night. He lost his virginity in a brothel in Paris, apparently on the fourth attempt.
Josephine introduced him to a world of sensual pleasure, including a sexual technique reportedly called “the zigzag.”
Historians have scrambled to understand what the technique might entail, but sex expert Tracey Cox has finally provided answers.
“It has to do with oral sex,” Tracey told FEMAIL.
Tracey argues that it would make more sense for Napoleon to use the method on Josephine, because “zigzagging a tongue means making sure you stimulate all parts of the clitoris, rather than focusing on just one spot and hitting it there.” to stay.’
However, the method could also be applied in reverse.
Tracey added: ‘Maybe she did that while giving him oral sex, zigzagging her tongue over the glans, the most sensitive part of the penis, which would target the frenulum, which is the most sensitive part of the jerk is.’
The ‘zigzag’ technique had Napoleon transfixed, but the French commander never revealed details about the technique, sparking intrigue among history buffs
Napoleon, pictured above on his imperial throne in 1804, was six years younger than his wife Josephine
Ridley Scott’s love affair blockbuster will grip audiences and plaster the couple on billboards across the country – a haunting reminder of what might have been if the Duke of Wellington had lost to the vain Corsican at Waterloo in 1815.
Director Sir Ridley, whose credits include Gladiator and Alien, points out that 10,400 books have been published on Napoleon’s life: “one every week since he died.” But much less has been written about the only woman he ever truly loved, and whose name would fill Napoleon’s dying breath.
Josephine – known to her family as Yeyette – was born in 1763 on the small Caribbean island of Martinique. Her once prosperous family was in decline, living in a crumbling mansion in the middle of their plantation, from where Josephine’s father, drunkard gambler Gaspard, could watch his 300 enslaved men, women and children toil in the sugar cane fields, watched over by ruthless overseers.
In fact, Yeyette spent more of her childhood in the company of slaves than in the company of friends or family, and regularly witnessed the horrific sight of Africans being taken off ships and taken to market, then branded, chained and forced to work.
As a 16-year-old, Yeyette married the wealthy Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais, three years her senior, although there was no affection or attraction on either side.
Josephine, pictured above in 1805, was born in 1763 on the small Caribbean island of Martinique
Perhaps unsurprisingly, after moving to France and having two children, the couple separated when Yeyette was just 22.
Yet it would take another ten years before her historic match with Napoleon could begin.
In 1794, Yeyette, then in her early thirties, was imprisoned and executed. This was what would later be called the ‘Reign of Terror’ – a period in the French Revolution when aristocrats and landowners faced violent persecution.
Her estranged husband, Alexandre, had been beheaded. She survived in her cell on scraps while her little pug Fortuné was trained to deliver messages to and from her children.
Shortly before she was to face her own appointment to the guillotine, Yeyette was saved when Robespierre, the architect of the Revolution, was deposed.
She was badly scarred by her captivity: her youthful beauty was robbed, her teeth were further damaged and she could no longer have children.
Joaquin Phoenix in the title role gives an enigmatic, mumbling performance that still leaves you wondering, even after two and a half hours, what exactly makes Napoleon tick
However, the suffering during the Terror brought her a certain social cachet.
As one observer opined, this was ‘the epitome of good manners to be ruined – suspected, persecuted and, above all, imprisoned’.
The end of the Terror saw a blossoming of wild abandon among the Parisian elite. There were many more women than men and Yeyette went from outcast to socialite almost overnight. She was quickly apprehended by an older man, Paul Barras, commander of the Army’s Interior Department.
Although they were lovers, this was an intensely pragmatic relationship. Both knew that the political winds might soon change again, and Barras prepared a protégé for power, a young man who could be his protector.
His name was Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon made a spectacular rise in the ranks. Two years earlier he had commanded an artillery detachment that drove the British army from Toulon. Barras introduced this ambitious soldier to his lover at a party and urged her to charm the younger man.
Naive and inexperienced with the opposite sex, Napoleon could not for a moment imagine that this impossibly glamorous woman, six years his senior, was playing a game. She stated that she admired him, and he believed it without a doubt.
Never before had he met a woman like her: most of his previous encounters had been awkward fumbling with ladies of the night. He lost his virginity in a brothel in Paris, apparently on the fourth attempt.
Not long after meeting Josephine, the 26-year-old Napoleon had hopelessly fallen for the widow with two children. Thus began the volcanic romance that would drive Napoleon across Europe, plunging him into fits of unbridled rage and entwining him in a marriage of unquenchable lust – until political reality took over.
The first time they made love in 1795, he wrote to her, giving the date “seven o’clock in the morning” and revealing: “I have woken up full of you.” The memory of yesterday’s intoxicating evening has given my senses no rest.
‘Dear and incomparable Josephine… I draw from your lips and heart a flame that burns me. I’ll see you in three hours. Until then, mio dolce amore (my sweet love), thousands of kisses, but don’t kiss me, because your kisses set my soul on fire.’
They made love, they fought and argued, and then they made love again. Napoleon called her Josephine – a contraction of her full name Marie-Josephe-Rose – and wrote to her: ‘What is your strange power, incomparable Josephine? I’ll give you three kisses, one on your heart, one on your lips, one on your eyes.’
Despite her misgivings – she told Barras she thought she could do better than Bonaparte – they married in a quiet ceremony two days before Napoleon set out to conquer Italy in March 1796.
He wrote constant, poignant love letters while he was away, which are so painfully hot that they smolder: “I go to bed with my heart full of your adorable image. I would be so happy if I could help you undress, small shoulder, small white chest, flexible, very firm. You know, I always remember the little visits… The little black forest. Kisses everywhere!’
The ‘little black forest’ is certainly a euphemism, as is Napoleon’s habit of referring to her genitals with the bizarre name ‘Baron de Kepen’.
There is also the infamous suggestion that Napoleon preferred his wife to be ‘unwashed’ before making love. Although this has been widely reported, it is probably a slur invented by the British as propaganda. If it were true, it would be more likely that he wanted to make sure she wasn’t having affairs behind his back.
He was also entranced by a sexual technique Josephine used that he called “the zigzags,” although what exactly that entailed is unclear.
Such is the fascination with Napoleon’s love life that it is even said that the doctor who performed the autopsy removed his penis and sold it to the priest who performed the last rites.
This was apparently later resold to an American collector, although its provenance has never been confirmed. The shriveled relic can now be found in the home of a New Jersey woman, Evan Lattimer, whose father, a urologist and eclectic collector, bought it in 1977.